Coretta Scott King died fifteen years ago today, on January 30, 2006. Thirty-five years ago, we at Seinan Gakuin University in Japan had the privilege of having Mrs. King on our campus and in our city. I am writing this in fond memory of Mrs. King.
 |
| Coretta Scott King in 2003 |
In central Alabama on April 27, 1927, Obadiah (“Obie”) and Bernice Scott became parents of a baby girl whom they maned Coretta. Just two and a half years later the Great Depression began, and life was hard for many Americans and especially for a Black family in Alabama. As a young girl, Coretta started tending the family garden, and by the age of ten she was working in the cotton fields. When she was 12, though, she enrolled as a seventh grader in Lincoln School in Marion, ten miles from home. She graduated from high school in 1945, the top student in her class.
After graduating in 1951 from Antioch College in Ohio, Coretta continued her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 |
| The Kings in 1964 |
In the fall of 1954,
Coretta and M.L. moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he became pastor of Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church. A year later their first child, Yolanda, was born. Three
more children were added to the King family, the last two being born in Atlanta
in 1961 and 1963.
M.L.’s involvement in the civil rights movement led to the bombing of the King home in 1956, the year between the birth of Yolanda and MLK, III.
Widow Coretta
Scott King
After years of anxiety
about what might happen to M.L. and/or to her family, her worst fears were
realized on that April 1968 evening in Memphis when MLK was fatally shot.
It was, of course, a
time of great grief for her and her family, but also for the nation, except for
the bigots and racists who had long railed against King and his clarion calls
for equality for “colored people.”
After M.L.’s assassination,
Mrs. King took on the leadership of the struggle for racial equality in the
U.S. Among other things, in 1968 she founded the Martin Luther King Jr.
Center for Nonviolent Social Change, commonly known as The King Center,” which
now hosts over one million visitors a year.
In 1985, Seinan Gakuin,
the school system that included the university where I was a full-time faculty
member, began to consider who to invite as a prominent speaker for the school’s
70th anniversary to be held in May 1986.
As a member of the planning committee, I suggested we try to get Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South
Africa to be our speaker, and some preliminary contacts were made in that regard.
But then someone came up with the idea of inviting Mrs. King. I thought that
was a brilliant suggestion.
Mrs. King accepted
our invitation. So, she came to Fukuoka City, spoke at Seinan Gakuin’s 70th
anniversary service, and also gave an address at a rented hall downtown. There
were around 4,000 people who attended that gala event.
I was also one of a
small group of Seinan people who hosted Mrs. King to a dinner one of the
evenings she was in our city, and I was impressed by what a warm, genuine
person she was.
Among the many
university students I taught, many had negative views of Christianity partly because
of the racism they knew was deeply rooted in the United States, even though it
was, they thought, a Christian nation.
Mrs. King’s talks at
Seinan Gakuin and in downtown Fukuoka City, widely covered by the press, were
warmly received, and her unassuming Christian witness was highly beneficial to those
of us serving as Christian missionaries in Japan.
So, today I am fondly
remembering Coretta Scott King and thanking God for her lifelong commitment to
peace and social justice.
The first comments received this morning were from local Thinking Friend Marilyn Peot. Here is what she says:
ReplyDelete"Another woman giving us hope during these times. Thank you for sharing her and your personal experience. Right now I have the need to hear of these beautiful souls...my image of her is her deep sadness behind the veil...and then to hear of her this morning touches me...thank you!"
Bro. Leroy,
ReplyDeleteI have heard some rather ridiculous (let's call them sinful) things about MLK,Jr during my time in the ministry, but I have never heard the first cross word about Mrs. King even from the local civil rights critics. She was gracious in both word and action, truly a model to emulate. One last note about your previous post on our new Secretary of the Interior, I have high hopes for her. May her work reflect the same leadership qualities as those of Mrs. King.
Thanks, Tom, for your comments. Yes, there were many erroneous and unfair things said about MLK, Jr., in the 1960s and he was looked upon with disfavor by a majority of Americans then--and, unfortunately, that unfounded criticism of him lasted for a long time. But, as you, I was never aware of negative things being said about Mrs. King. She was, indeed, an illustrious Christian lady.
DeleteHere are short, but significant, comments by local Thinking Friend Greg Brown:
ReplyDelete"I read your post about Mrs. King and I share the concerns of your Japanese students about the entanglement of White Christianity and White Supremacy/Racism in the U.S."
This morning, Temp Sparkman, another local Thinking Friend sent these brief comments:
ReplyDelete""Ever since you announced that you’d be writing about Mrs. King, I’ve looked forward to reading it. You actually knew her!!! Your Japanese compatriots were broad in their embrace of her and the life and work of ‘M.L.’ She admiringly embraced being the life companion (cut short) of someone so famous."
Thank you, Leroy, for continuing to remind us of people and issues we need to think about; even if that did have to include reminding me of 1968. I graduated from high school that year, but I will never remember it as "the good old days." I cried myself to sleep the night MLK died, despairing over whether America would ever redeem itself. As America's cities burned across the nation, I was sad, but not surprised. Then, before the funk wore off, Robert Kennedy was assassinated as well. The Democratic Convention in Chicago featured a police riot that contributed to Nixon's election on his "secret" plan to end the war in Vietnam. Well, if my plan was to fight on for five more years and then lose the war, I would keep that secret, too! King had a much better plan, admit that the war was a terrible mistake, and negotiate an orderly exit, including any Vietnamese who wanted to come with us. Instead, we can see the end of the war in the musical "Miss Saigon."
ReplyDeleteAs for Coretta Scott King, I, like many others, have nothing but the greatest admiration for her. I am reminded that she had posthumous fame when Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced by the Republican majority for daring to read from a letter written by Mrs. King concerning the qualifications of Senator Jeff Sessions. Sessions was then pending as the next Attorney General of the United States. Warren thought King's words so relevant and important, that, as Senator Mitch McConnell observed, "Nevertheless, she persisted."
Thanks for sharing this, Craig. I hadn't remembered about Mrs. King's 1986 letter in opposition to Jeff Sessions being approved as a federal judge--and she wrote that just a couple of months before she visited us in Japan. It seems to me that Sen. Warren had every right to read that letter before the Senate in 2017.
Delete